My editor, Sheila Gilbert of DAW Books, won the Hugo for Best Editor – Long Form! I’ve worked with Sheila for more than a decade now, and she’s been both a wonderful editor and an all-around great human being. I’m so happy to see her receive this well-deserved honor and recognition.

Photo via Edward Willett

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Michi Trota became the first Filipino to win a Hugo award. She won, along with Michael and Lynne Thomas, for her work on Uncanny Magazine. Combine that with Alyssa Wong winning an Alfie from George R. R. Martin, and you get one of the best photos of the weekend:

Photo via Alyssa Wong

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Looking at the voting stats, Invisible 2 came in pretty high on the longlist for Best Related Work, which is wonderful to see. Thank you to everyone who nominated it.

Andy Weir and The Martian won the Campbell Award and the Hugo for Best Dramatic Work, Long Form, respectively. Which led to actual astronauts accepting in both categories. I made a joke on Twitter about it not being a real party until the astronauts were wearing the Campbell tiara. Little did I realize…

There’s so much more wonderful and amazing news from Worldcon. Huge congrats to all the Hugo winners. Nnedi Okorafor won for Binti. N. K. Jemisin took home the Best Novel Hugo for Fifth Season. A translated work, “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, won the Best Novelette. So many well-deserve honors.

While no event is ever perfect, almost all the accounts I’m reading describe Worldcon as a great time.

I’m sure there’s other great stuff I haven’t mentioned. Please remedy that in the comments! 🙂

17 Comments

My friend (or at least very good acquaintance) Brother Guy Consolmagno S.J. is also a Guest of Honor for NorthAmeriCon ’17 (NASFiC).

I think that the business meeting did some good work (and some valiant but perhaps less effective work) to add defenses against slates to the Hugo Awards.

As I committed myself to being in the business meeting providing support services, I didn’t see as much of the rest of the con as I might have, but I think it was an otherwise very good convention and am, as usual, looking forward to next year.

It was a superbly run con with wonderful, organized scheduling, well-cared-for panelists by the green room, pleasant volunteers, packed panel rooms full of attentive, interested, and interesting aufiences, and so many smiles all around. I had a wonderful time!

AvilynAug 22, 2016 @ 13:11:53

I watched the livestream of the Hugos, and let out a “Yes!” along with a fist pump when Sheila Gilbert was announced as the winner. 😀 Well deserved recognition, IMO.

I had a slight twinge of disappointment that Uprooted didn’t win the Best Novel award, but as I ranked Fifth Season #2 on my ballot behind Uprooted, the twinge didn’t last long. Especially looking at the numbers after the fact and seeing that Uprooted came in a strong second. 🙂

Loved the astronauts accepting for the Martian awards. Those won the night. 🙂

I actually exclaimed out loud when I saw that Jessica Jones won. I mean, I knew it is an amazing show, but didn’t quite realize how much it means to me, until it won?

Also, we now get Chuck Tingle’s new book, “Pounded in the Butt by my Hugo Award Loss.”

Jason WodickaAug 22, 2016 @ 14:31:32

Three-stage voting passed, along with an amendment to further refine EPH. (I wasn’t able to make it this year, so I was following along with the notes posted by Kevin Standlee: http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/.)

San Jose won the 2018 Worldcon site selection vote, and I’m privileged to be its chair.

I’m really thrilled we get to include Spider Robinson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro as Guests of Honor, and Pierre and Sandy Pettinger as Fan Guests of Honor. (We also have Edgar Pangborn and Bob Wilkins as Ghost and gHost of Honor, respectively).

SallyAug 22, 2016 @ 17:22:52

I was very stoked when “Cat Pictures, Please” won as I had been forcing that story on everyone I know all last year. Even my non-fan friends liked it.

Double stoked that San Jose won 2018, because I know Kevin, and he and the gang run a great con. Didn’t know about the guests, but am pleased with them.

I don’t think I can go to San Juan, but I’m glad they won and might try. Wouldn’t have bothered with their competition.

“Mary Robinette Kowal gives a masterclass in how to accept the consequences of your actions like a grown-up, as well as single-handedly showing that no, the convention wasn’t selectively using its code of conduct to punish people for political views or beliefs.”

Actually, it looks like a not-very-subtle attempt to PRETEND that the convention wasn’t being political. But compared with what happened in the Truesdale case, there are few significant differences:

1) MRK was taken aside and given a chance to address the allegations; Truesdale wasn’t. He was just informed by e-mail that he was no longer welcome, no discussion.

2) MRK was merely suspended for a day, where Truesdale was ejected completely.

3) Most importantly, MRK actually broke a rule. (Perhaps even a state law?).

Although the post implies that this has something to do with making people “feel safe”, I see no evidence that anybody complained of feeling “unsafe” because of her actions.

She wasn’t punished for expressing an unpopular opinion, or for being rude, or for rambling on for too long. She was suspended because she did something concrete that could have gotten the con in trouble with the venue. There’s really no comparison.

Anonymous TrollAug 25, 2016 @ 14:09:24

I just bought your books from the distributor for my bookstore. Which I really own, honest!

AllisonAug 26, 2016 @ 09:44:43

If you read the comments on MRK’s blog post about the incident, you will see that she did in fact make someone feel unsafe and that person unfortunately had to leave the panel. They were the one who complained to the con about her actions. So not only did she concretely violate a rule (albeit in ignorance), she also violated the “allowing people to feel safe” clause in the code of conduct. She owned that as well and apologized profusely to the wronged party.

VancouveroisAug 26, 2016 @ 11:41:10

Thank you for pointing that out – I stand corrected! There was no such mention in the post, but I see that down the thread there is indeed someone who identifies himself as the complainant and explains why it was an issue for him.

However, I think it’s still pretty clear the organizers didn’t take these steps simply because of the discomfort of a single person with particular circumstances. They did it because an actual, non-subjective rule was broken – one that could have gotten them kicked out of the venue for violating a contract.

And they still approached Ms Kowal and gave her a chance to respond, where they threw Truesdale out without giving him any such opportunity.

[While it didn’t affect the outcome, I’d also note that there’s a significant difference between a former addict who’s trying to avoid temptations that could lead to a relapse, and somebody who feels “unsafe” because another person was rude to them or expressed an opinion they don’t like.]

Joel ZakemAug 26, 2016 @ 20:54:44

Since this was the first passage of Three-state voting, it will have to be ratified in Helsinki before it takes effect.